MUHAMMED SHAH AGA KAHN III
The Hijra was the spread of Islam after The Prophet organized the first Muslims. Islamic reformers have been trying to improve the legal and cultural position of women in Islamic Societies ever since with little success, even in modern times. The notable exception was the Turkish Revolution led by Ataturk. He was familiar with Aga Kahn arguments for reform and put the force of law behind them. See {444998}.
Over 100 years later a group of Islamic Modernists and Scientists came to a similar conclusion.
Islamic modernists like him are many among the educated Muslims but their views are often drowned out by the violence and extremist statements of the fundamentalists.
“Musalmans” was then another English term for Muslims. At the time, the Hindus and Muslims of India were both under the rule of the British. As bad as Colonial Rule was, it had some advantages for the subjects and their desire to reform government and education. Ironically, there is no Islamic nation today, with the exception of Turkey, where Muslims have the rights, freedom and privileges as they had at the turn of the century in Colonial India.
In almost all societies until recent times, many uneducated people—especially from rural areas—were not enthusiastic about sending their children to school. They worried about losing the farm or factory labor of the children, losing control / influence, children learning unacceptable moral or religious ideas, and social mobility was so poor that many parents thought that it would never help the children.
This quotation is fascinating but sad. In 1902, Aga Kahn III and other Muslim reformers gathered to improve the terrible state of Muslim education. Muslims could attend the English operated public schools which were excellent, but the Imams fought these schools as they were purely secular and not under their control. Yet the Madrassas religious schools that then existed taught by rote and only Islamic religious content—no mathematics, science, other literature, art or anything else. Much of the teaching was religiously extreme with not even modern religious content. Over a century later the Schools of Pakistan—the Islamic nation carved out of India and those of most of the Arab nations are little better and despite a century of progress, the curriculum is the same.
Islamic modernists like him are many among the educated Muslims but their views are often drowned out by the violence and extremist statements of the fundamentalists.
The major complaints of Muslim fundamentalists then was that “non believers” should never be in government positions of authority over Muslims and that Islamic Law—Sharia—was not the law of the land. The modern and reformist Muslims tried to change the vision of their co-religionists but progress was slow. Over a century later, the same complaints are made by Islamic fundamentalists today and the Muslim reformers are still trying to persuade them that what they want is not desirable.
